


Like My Mirror Years Ago

by WishUponADragon



Series: Worlds Collide [4]
Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Angst, Breakup, F/M, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:34:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28104786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WishUponADragon/pseuds/WishUponADragon
Summary: Jack lost everything. Again. She handles it as best she can.
Relationships: Yassen Gregorovich/Jack Starbright
Series: Worlds Collide [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2049111
Comments: 5
Kudos: 12





	Like My Mirror Years Ago

Three months. That was all they’d given them. Jack seethed across the table from some man, Crowley or Crawly or something- she wished he’d crawl back to hell- as he went on about just how much security camera footage placed her with one of the most wanted assassins in the world. The grainy pictures he placed before her were almost insulting. She had much better selfies of the two of them.

This was all lead up. Jack knew well enough that she wouldn’t be sitting there in the offices behind the facade of the bank if there wasn’t a damn good  _ point _ . She laced her fingers together and waited for the man to get to it.

“Did you know who this man was prior to today, Miss Starbright?” 

There it was. Jack wrinkled her nose upon hearing her name. Those words fell like a benediction from Yassen’s lips, but were a harsh condemnation from the man towering over her. She looked over the pictures laid out in front of her. Either he wasn’t as smart as he thought he was, or he’d underestimated her. Maybe both. Jack looked back up at him. “I see a lot of pictures of us. You still haven’t shown me any evidence.”

Crawley sputtered. “Evidence?” 

Jack nodded. She spoke slower than normal, as if he were a bit dull. “Evidence. That means something that proves your claim. Can you prove my boyfriend is actually this world class assassin you say he is? Because the burden of proof is traditionally placed on the accusing party.” 

She stayed leaning back in her chair while he rocked back on his heels. He turned towards the window, then whipped back towards her sharply. “He killed Ian Rider.”

As if she somehow didn’t know. As if Alex hadn’t told her the first moment they were alone. As if  _ Yassen _ hadn’t told her. “Burden of proof is traditionally placed on the accusing party,” she repeated, trying her level best to sound as if adrenaline wasn’t coursing through her. 

He wouldn’t be able to produce anything for her, of course. Everything with Yassen’s name on it- or Ian’s for that matter- was stamped with a bright red ‘classified.’ She tipped her head to the side and waited to see what he would do next. 

He was trying to scare her for some reason. Maybe they wanted information about Yassen, or they wanted her to turn against him, even testify before a court. But there was another possibility, and Jack didn’t want to draw any hard conclusions before she ruled out her biggest concern. 

He placed his hands on the table and bent over slightly, faux concern on every inch of his face. “You’re a smart woman, Miss Starbright. Surely it’s occurred to you that he’s using you to get to Alex?” 

Jack could barely keep her irritation from showing on her face. Didn’t these people have any tricks besides using her and Alex against one another? “If you’re implying I should be worried about him murdering my best friend, I assure you, he’s had plenty of chances to.” Not the least of which had been when he’d first drug him home from wherever these people had sent him. She smiled, suddenly feeling very petty. “He does most of the cooking when we don’t eat out. He’s a real master with a knife.” 

The man went very pale, and Jack felt the weight of her words in the room. There wasn’t much point denying she knew about his past. Not that she had been denying anything, she reminded herself. There was nothing wrong with pointing out flaws in an argument. 

She wasn’t expecting the next one. “Why?” He sounded genuinely curious. 

Jack stared at him like he’d just said the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. It very nearly was. She considered not justifying it with a response. “I noticed.”

He waited for her to go on. When she didn’t, he prompted her. “Noticed what?”

“That you’re afraid of him.” 

He recoiled with a sneer. “Afraid-“

“You haven’t tried to take Alex in three months.” It was damning proof, for both of them. “Whatever else he’s done, I can forgive. He keeps you people away from us. Most of the time at least.” Because that’s what this was all about. They’d finally decided they wanted to use Alex again. 

Crawley didn’t contradict her. He didn’t say anything, just pushed himself away from the table and looked at her as if for the first time. “And that’s really worth it to you?”

Of course it was. It would have been, if being with Yassen didn’t make her happy. Didn’t make her feel like the world was less of a horrible place than she’d been envisioning it. Even if she wasn’t head over heels for him, yes, it would have been worth the risk and confusion and scrutiny to have Alex home and safe, not in mortal danger or being tortured or abandoned by the same people who insisted he obey their every command. 

But she did love him. Not just for the safety he provided, but for a million tiny things she’d never be able to express, not here, not to him. Jack loved Yassen, loved him for how he genuinely enjoyed Monet and laughed at her terrible jokes and how he held her hand on soft nights filled with stars. Of course it was worth it. 

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Jack stood and walked away. She didn’t know whether it was a good or bad sign that no one even tried to stop her. 

* * *

  
  


Yassen wasn’t there when she got home. She waited all night by a door she knew wouldn’t open and a phone she knew wouldn’t ring. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


MI6 came for Alex the next day. She didn’t know how to stop them. Alex didn’t try, and that was what pulled her heart all the way to breaking. 

* * *

  
  


She tried to pretend it was okay. Jack spent four restless days attending classes and reading her textbook assignments three times over because she just couldn’t make the words stick. There was plenty of food in the fridge, and most of it stayed there. She didn’t bother turning the lights out at night. She was too wound up to sleep for anything other than bone-deep exhaustion. 

They hadn’t given Alex a phone. He wouldn’t be able to call her, and would have no reason to until he was coming home, but she kept hers charged and a maximum of an inch from her hand. Just in case. Just in case he needed her, in case she could help. She knew it wouldn’t ring.

And then, like a miracle, on the fifth day it did. The number was unknown. Jack knocked two of her books off the table in her haste to answer it. 

“Yes?” She pressed the phone to her ear like she could pull the person on the other end into an embrace if she just tried hard enough.

It wasn’t Alex. “I’m where you wore the ugly dress. Can you meet me?”

Jack bit back the initial fury that surged through her, pressed on her tongue, demanded its own release. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth and didn’t pay any mind to the tears that she held no command over. “Of course.” 

Ian had told her about the gun in case of emergencies. This probably wasn’t what he’d had in mind. It was heavy in her palm, and fit snugly in her purse. 

She wished he hadn’t picked this place. Anywhere else she might have been able to pretend it had never mattered, had never been as serious as it had been. But this was the first place they’d gone to together, the first place they’d danced. Their history was why he chose it, of course. It was one of the only places that would do to remind Jack she had loved him. Even if he’d left her at the mercy of people he knew damn well had none. 

It was dark, and she couldn’t see any other cars by the church. She wasn’t surprised. She slammed the door of her car loud enough to be heard and waited. He’d come slinking from the shadows like a chagrined cat soon enough. 

“It really isn’t safe to stand in the open like this.” Yep. There he was. Pretty damn predictable for an assassin.

“And yet here you are.” 

He didn’t argue with her. She looked him over carefully. Wherever he’d been staying had a shower. She didn’t recognize the jeans or sweatshirt, but the waistline was just a little too tight. He was armed. She tilted her head and considered what to do next. She probably should have thought this far ahead at least.

“Here I am,” he agreed, taking a step closer. Jack stiffed and he froze. She’d never have thought to describe his pale blue eyes as piercing before, rather soft or observant or even bright, but now he watched her like a grizzly bear sizing up an opponent. The same way she was looking at him, she realized. 

He backed up a half step. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know what to say. Her eyes drifted down to his shoes. Combat boots. For one reason or another, he was working again, or had been. She drew her eyes back up to his face. He was watching her just as carefully, and she recognized they had suddenly begun playing a dangerous game. Jack bit back a sigh. None of her other breakups had been this complicated. 

She decided to stick to the facts. “You left.”

“...I did.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They took Alex.” Jack couldn’t keep her voice from cracking. 

“I know.” Of course he did. Had he been watching them again? 

“They sent him off to god only knows where, and I don’t know if he’s alone, or captured, or if he’s even alive and-”

“Jack.” How was he so calm, even when she was bordering on hysterical? Jack wanted to be the one at the eye of this hurricane. “He’s in London.” 

That... that was something. She clamped her jaw shut and crossed her arms over her chest. “And how do you know that?”

His eyes flickered down to her purse. “Promise not to shoot me?”

She sighed and leaned back against her car. “Stupid question. You already knew I wouldn’t.”

The upward twitch of his lips was infuriating, despite what the tug at her heart had to say about it. “MI6 asked me to help him.” He tipped his head to the side in a universal  _ well... _ gesture. “I say ‘asked.’”

Jack snorted. She couldn’t help it. “They’re very persuasive, aren’t they?”

“Yes.” All of the subtle emotion she’d started to become familiar with recognizing drained from his face, and Jack was left with the startling realization that this was how most people knew him. A completely stone cold assassin. A shiver ran down her spine. “And I would rather not be  _ persuaded _ like this again. I’m not coming back.”

It took a moment for Jack to filter through the possible meanings of that phrase. “You aren’t leaving now, are you?”

“No. I’ll get Alex back to you first. But this is going to be the last time you and I see each other.” He started slowly walking away from her. Jack pushed herself off the car and started after him.

“Wait, wait, don’t go yet!” She had no reason for him to stay, but he stopped anyway. Jack twisted her fingers into small knots, racking her brain for anything that might make her world stop falling down around her ears for once. “What if I came with you?”

It was a patently ridiculous suggestion. Yassen seemed to consider it. “No. I don’t think that would be a good idea.” 

Something from her conversation with the MI6 agent stuck at her, like a splinter she’d only just noticed, and now couldn’t imagine that she hadn’t realized the source of her discontent sooner. “Why?” 

“You don’t have a cover, and I’ve seen you try to lie before. It’s better you stay out of it.” He hadn’t understood the question. Then again, she hadn’t phrased it right.

She shook her head softly. “No, I know that. I meant why me? Why did you stay with me so long? I’m not anything special. I’m not useful to you.” She considered leaving it there, but... “The MI6 agent thought you were trying to get to Alex.”

He stilled, so much so she could barely make out his breathing. “I was. At first. It’s easier to protect someone when you’re close by, and I didn’t have anything better to do than keep my godson safe.” He stepped tentatively towards her. “But you’re wrong. You are special.” He brushed a few strands of red hair out of her face and ran a finger down her cheek. “You’re bold enough to threaten someone you know to be a professional killer, and kind enough to overlook that. You’re smart enough to think the way that we do, and observant enough to know that it frightens everyone else. With training, you would have been a good agent, but you aren’t. You aren’t broken the way everyone in my line of work is, and you have no idea how beautiful that really is.” He gently brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “You’re very special, Miss Starbright.”

Jack pulled him into a hug. If he was surprised by the sudden affection, he didn’t show it. “Not forever. Okay? Come back. Promise me. Please?”

Yassen kissed the top of her head and gently pried her arms off of him. “Maybe birds will build a bridge for us someday.”

Jack nodded, unable to stop the tears from clouding her vision now. “Okay. Someday. I’ll be waiting.”


End file.
